‘Dhammal’- Wandering Fakirs’ Tribute to Maula Ali, Bibi Zainab and Imam Zainul Abdeen
By Dr..Mazhar Naqvi
“I am burning with the Beloved’s love, every moment.
At one moment I am writhing on dust and in the other I am dancing on thorns.
Come, O Beloved! Give me passion for music,
I dance in the open market, in the ecstasy of union.
In His love, I became infamous, but O pious one,
I do not mind this infamy for thy sake and I dance openly.
Although the world calls me a beggar because I dance,
I have a secret in my heart that impels me to dance”
Prominent Sufi Lal Shahbaz Qalandar has composed this beautiful poetry to justify the tradition of ‘Dhammal’ (trance dance) at Sufi shrines. As orthodox Muslims have always tried to portray wandering mendicants as Be-Shara(Not in tune),Shahbaz Qalandar used his poetic skills to give them a befitting reply, pleading apparent worship is inferior to those in constant love with divine. In undivided India, Dhammal by wandering Qalandars and Malangs was a common sight during the ‘Urs’ of Sufis. But now in India the tradition of Dhammal is somewhat restricted to the shrine of Hazrat Badiuddin Zinda Shah Madar in Makanpur village of Kanpur district. Although Malangs are seen at the prominent shrines of Sufis like Khwaja Ghareeb Nawaz Moin Uddin Chishti of Ajmer or Baba Tajuddin at Nagpur but nowhere else they perform Dhammal in India. Both qalandars and Malangs however absorbed themselves in Dhammal not only at the Dargah of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sehwan in Pakistan during his Urs but also Sufi shrines in Islamabad and Lahore.
They attach more significance to Lal Shahbaz Qalandar (Red falcon), for it was he is believed to have started the tradition of Dhammal. His real name was Syed Usman Marwandi. Born in 1178 AD in the town of Marand near Tabriz in Azerbaijan into a family that traced its descent to the 6th Imam Jafar Sadiq, Syed Marwandi was a young man with a strong religious inclination. He visited Mecca and then initiated into Qalandari order in Karbala. From Iraq, he wandered eastwards via the Makran coast to arrive in Sindh where he stayed in Laki village for a short period. Then, he traveled to Multan and other parts of India where he met a number of famous Sufis. He returned to Sehwan on 8 December, 1251 with a large following of wandering mendicants. He finally settled at Sehwan and people venerate him to this day as a great devotee of Imam Ali and as a charismatic protector, healer and miracle-worker as well.
The striking similarity between the background of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar and Shah Madar gives an Idea as to why Qalandars and Malangs prefer to perform Dhammal at their shrines. Like Lal Shahbaz, founder of Madariya Sufi order, Shah Madar, was also born in Aleppo (Syria) a place far from India. He too traced his decent to Imam Jafar Sadiq. Shah Madar also exhibited deep religious inclination from a young age and set off for Mecca and Medina at the age of 14.Shah Madar also visited Karbala and Najaf where he received spiritual training from Imam Mehndi (AZ).He also arrived in India through the coastal region of Malabar like Shahbaz Qalandar and wandered throughout India and neighboring countries. He too happened to meet great Sufis during his travels and performed several Hajs on foot. Shah Madar was also a great admirer of Hazrat Ali and most of his poetry is also devoted to the cousin and son-in-law of Prophet. Finally, he chose a small village Makanpur as his last resting place and his shrines draws large crowd all over the world during his Urs. He is also considered to be a great healer and miracle worker like red falcon. ’Dhammal’ like the shrine of Lal Shahbaz is the biggest crowd puller even at Makanpur with three major differences. In Makanpur, Malangs not qalandars do trance dancing, they do Shaghal-E-Dhammal without the beats of drums and women are not supposed to participate in Dhammal ceremony.
For common pilgrims, Dhammal is a customary, stereotyped and ritualized, but also intensely elaborative form of expressing their veneration of the Sufi at his death anniversary (Urs).They treat as a means to create a space to express emotions through the idiom of rapture and devotion to the divine power and his beloved ones. They find use of repetitive rhythmic patterns by Dhammal dancers and gradually increase in its rapidity to create a trance-inducing state. In this way, drum beats are transformed into ‘Bol’ ( Wordings).
However, in his conversation with so many Malangs over the years at Makanpur, the author found Dhammal to symbolize the sufferings of Imam Zainul-Abidin and Hazrat Zainab after the tragedy of Karbala. The Malangs attribute the movements of the Dhammal to sufferings of Imam Zainul Abdeen who was forced to walk by the Military commanders of Caliph Yazid had to walk with heavy iron chains in small steps tripping with his bare feet on the glowing hot sand of the desert, his head bowed down by the weight of a heavy heart-shaped stone put around his neck.
The barbaric commanders had also tied the hands of Bibi Zainab and snatched her veil. When she was made to pass through the crowded markets of Kufa and Damascus (Shaam) she had let her hair down in order to avoid the gaze of her male tormentors and onlookers. In her remembrance, a distinct devotional dance called ‘Zainabi Dhammal’ is performed by women at Dargah of lal Shahbaz Qalandar to mourn the sufferings of imam and his aunt. Both Zainul-Abidin and Bibi Zainab are important figures of Karbala narratives and also as messengers of Imam Husain and his mission. Their personalities serve as role models for younger generations to emulate their lives on their pattern to please the God. Their movements are mimetically enacted by tripping from right to left like the Imam (or through carrying chains in the case of pro-Ahle-Bait dervishes) and whirling with open hair like Bibi Zainab.
Those who are aware of these specific traditions, dhammal constantly evokes a ‘bodily social memory’ whereby the body is transformed into a site of memory. Body memory can be described as a sort ‘habit-memory’. This analysis helps to explain the importance of learning and successfully performing a spiritual discipline and technique such as Dhammal. Malangs use their dance for invoking Imam Zainul-Abidin and Bibi Zainab with their attachment to Ali and his Sufi followers intact. Both, Ali and Sufis holding him in great reverence are considered as essential mediators whose presence is felt through whirling the body in a state of rapture. Within the Madariya order, devotees emphasize that the heart should have a relation to God; only then Dhammal could be treated as a form of Ibadat (worship of Allah) and only then could they be emotionally absorbed in Shah Madar.
In vernacular languages such as Urdu, Punjabi, Sindhi, Hindi and Gujarati Dhammal means ‘wild’, ‘boisterous’ and ‘over-excited’. According to common folk etymology, this term is derived from the Persian word dam (‘breath’); hence one of the most common devotional formulas is dama dam mast qalandar—through your breath, O Qalandar intoxicated (by the divine)’.Another version claims that Dhammal comes from dham, meaning the sound of tamping or jumping on the ground, and explains this term as ‘jumping into, or running through fire’. While Dhammal at Sehwan meets the parameter of folk etymology, the trace dance in Makanpur fulfills the conditions laid down in the second version.
This sacred ritual is a characteristic feature of the devotional and ecstatic religiosity embedded in the local societies. As numbers of Malangs and qalandars have been dwindling in India sub- Continent, there is urgent need to revive the tradition with renewed vigor by the caretakers or Sajjada Nasheens of Sufi shrines or else who would cry at Urs ceremonies or perform Dhammal with on his lips:
“Ali, Ali, Ali, ḥaqq
dam mast Qalandar, dam mast Qalandar
la Ilaha, illa llah
Ya Pak, Ya Pak,”
(Ali, Ali, Ali, truth
Through your breath, O Qalandar intoxicated
There is no god but God
O pure one, O pure one)
(References available on request)
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